First Camera

So tonight is the first night of the Democratic National Convention. I might actually watch this one... sorry Clint. 

I think the fighting between parties gets a little hard to stomach, but I must admit to getting caught up in some of the competitive feeling of an election year. I've been bookmarking tons of articles, but I'm far too tired to pontificate in this blog here tonight.

First Camerman: Documenting the
Obama Presidency in Real Time
by Arun Chaudhary.

Instead, I thought I would share an interesting news story that I heard the other day on NPR. They ran an interview with Arun Chaudhary, who has served the past four years at the first official White House videographer. I am familiar with the idea of presidential photographers (Pete Souza does a great job), but I never really thought about someone to document with video... talk about an intense and possibly over-scrutinized job... but it makes perfect sense in this day of instant web access. Chaudhary tells NPR about his early days with Obama on the campaign trail: "I thought the real job of any smart, young filmmaker working for a campaign has to be to think of that brilliant 30-second ad that's the one that just transforms the election. ... And then [I] quickly realize that all these little clever things I was doing on the side were not getting the hits, the attention that uncut speeches from Sen. Obama were: the victory speech in Iowa or the race speech. These were the ones that were the real 'viral' hits." 

The job must be quite the window into history... Chaudhary tells about the experience in his new book, First Cameraman. I would hope his work captures something authentic, but it must be difficult to capture reality... and surely a pain for the President to constantly be concerned about? Talk about living in a bubble. Anyway, I'm sure that the document will be interesting to look at many years from now.

On the topic of videography, my own recent work for Peace Action New York State has lead to another gig... interesting because the client has family ties to a former child star, whose show I used to enjoy watching as a kid... video sure can connect you with interesting people, as I'm sure Chaudhary would attest to.

Related Links:

"Behind the Lens with Obama's 'First Cameraman," NPR, September 2, 2012

2012 Democratic National Convention